The Dissident Read online

  “Who is Cash?” I asked.

  “He’s the one who hosts the Wednesday Art Lunches. When it started it was just your cousin and Cash and me; now there’re usually about ten of us. You should come sometime.”

  “That’s a strange name,” Meiling said.

  “He named himself after his favorite American singer.” Fang grabbed an imaginary microphone and began to croon in English: “Well, you wonder why I always dress in black…Why you never see bright colors on my back…”

  “Please,” said the secretary. “I beg you.”

  Fang stopped obligingly. “Cash does it better anyway. He might be there today—we should hurry, or we’ll be late.”

  Suddenly I felt nervous. “He’s not expecting me. I was just going to leave a note.”

  “Don’t be so polite,” Fang said. “Man, is he going to be surprised.”

  28.

  THE APARTMENT WE VISITED THAT AFTERNOON WAS IN A NEW COMPOUND just west of the Asian Games Village, in the northern part of the city. A uniformed guard let us in downstairs, and called Fang’s name into an intercom receiver. You could see he was unhappy about letting us up: Meiling and I looked fine, if undistinguished, but Fang’s sloppy, none-too-clean clothes made a bad impression. Although I liked him immediately, I have to admit that Fang never smelled very good.

  The elevator opened onto a long, softly lit hallway, with peach-colored walls and very large fire sprinklers. Along the walls at intervals were glass-fronted alcoves; resting there were imitation Ming vases filled with silk flowers and ceramic horses in dramatic postures, their manes blowing in a fierce, imaginary wind.

  “Your cousin lives here?” Meiling whispered, but not softly enough because Fang turned around and corrected her. It was the first time he used a tone with us that was anything less than accommodating.

  “This is nothing like where he lives. It’s his girlfriend Lulu’s apartment—the setting for the project they’re working on.”

  “His girlfriend is working on the project too?” Meiling asked.

  “All his friends help him out,” Fang said. “We consider it a privilege. After all, he’s going to be really famous one day.”

  While we were chatting, the door was opened by an old lady in well-tailored modern clothes; she barely nodded, and then retreated down the hall toward what I imagined was the kitchen. I wished we were going that way; I could smell the delicious aroma of fried pork and scallions. But Fang motioned us down the hall in the other direction, from which I could see a very bright electric light and hear several voices arguing.

  Fang knocked sharply on the door; a moment later someone opened it. I was glad the hallway was dark, because I felt myself blushing; Meiling, too, did not know where to look. There were three people in the room. The man who opened the door (he was a man, from the bulge in his skintight black-and-white-striped jeans) had a female face—a real woman’s face, rather than a transvestite’s. He was wearing a tasteful amount of makeup and his shoulder-length hair had been blow-dried to shiny perfection, as in an advertisement for Rejoice 2-in-1 shampoo.

  “You’re late,” he said to Fang, and stepped aside: we were standing in a luxuriously appointed bedroom, in the center of which was a queen-sized white bed. Standing to the left of the bed, wrapped in a pink-and-white-checked sheet, was a very tall, thin young woman. I assumed this was Lulu. She was not beautiful so much as exotic, with high cheekbones and widely spaced, almost Tibetan eyes. She didn’t appear to be wearing anything under the sheet except for white tights and a pair of pink silk ballet shoes. On the other side of the bed was my cousin, who had grown lanky, dark, and strong since I had seen him last. X was wearing absolutely nothing at all.

  “I don’t think we should see any bush,” said the womanish man. (This was Baoyu, whom I would later count among my friends; at the time he seemed as foreign to me as a circus performer.)

  “What a surprise,” Lulu said. “You, against bush.”

  “I’ve got bush, sweetheart. Wanna see it?”

  “Shhh…” Lulu said, tilting her head toward the kitchen. “My waipo.”

  The woman who had opened the door, then, was her grandmother. Later I learned more about Lulu’s exotic family history: she was the product of a tryst between a Hong Kong businessman and a well-known television actress. Her mother was now married to a high official, who supported Lulu generously while she studied at Beijing’s famous Academy of Dance. Once she finished her training (Lulu would tell you, given any opportunity), she had always planned to go to Hong Kong, where she would find her real father and star in martial arts films. Then she met X, and everything changed. My cousin had convinced her that Chinese artists who left the mainland were betraying not only their country and their fellow citizens, but themselves.

  “Just two asses on a bed: one dark, one artificially white. It’s perfect,” said Baoyu, but my cousin wasn’t paying attention to him. He was staring at me, trying to figure out who I was. Even though he was the one who’d been caught naked with a ballerina and another man, I was nervous in front of him. I couldn’t look at his face, so I stared at the floor: I was strangely relieved to discover that my cousin had ugly, misshapen feet.

  “I’m sorry I’m late,” Fang said. “But look who I found!”

  “I know you,” said X, but he could not place me.

  There was no help for it. “Xiao Pangzi,” I said.

  Meiling giggled. Needless to say, I had not repeated my embarrassing childhood nickname to her before now.

  “Cousin!” X said. Then, to my great discomfort, he came across the room and gave me a hug. He stepped back and noticed Meiling. “Excuse me,” he said, grinning, but Baoyu was already handing him a bathrobe. I noticed that neither this man nor Lulu was looking at me with any particular fondness.

  “My uncle’s son from Harbin,” X explained. “Little Fatty! A great scholar and speaker of English!” I didn’t know that my normally abstemious cousin had prepared for this particular project, an exploration of bourgeois decadence in the New China entitled Modern Dance, by snorting three fat lines of cocaine, but it contributed to my very warm reception. He was not normally so effusive. “Permit me to introduce my girlfriend, the lovely and talented Miss Lulu. And this is my good friend, Baoyu.”

  Baoyu inclined his head slightly in our direction. “Lovely and talented as well, of course.”

  “This is my classmate, Meiling,” I said. “We don’t want to intrude.”

  “You’re too polite,” my cousin said. Lulu and Baoyu didn’t say anything. “But it’s true that we’re in the middle of something.”

  “But the middle of what?” Lulu said. “That’s my question.”

  “Modern Dance.” X smiled at me. “What else?”

  “Could I use your bathroom?” Meiling whispered.

  Lulu gestured lazily, although it was obvious. The door was open, and the bathroom was lit up like a stage dressing room, with high-voltage bulbs around a large, oval mirror.

  “That’s your girlfriend?” my cousin asked, giving me a little wink.

  “Just a friend,” I told him, in case Meiling could hear us from the bathroom.

  “She’s cute,” he said. “Seems a little shy though.”

  “Not usually.”

  X laughed. “Yeah. Hey, it’s so good to see you. I thought I was going to have to come hunting for you.”

  “I found them,” Fang reminded him.

  When Meiling came out of the bathroom, she looked calmer. I could tell she had heard us talking from the way she refused to look at X. “Sorry,” she said to me. “But we should go. Remember we have that mandatory study session?”

  X was staring at her. Suddenly he slapped his palm against his forehead. “That’s it!” he said. “Miss Meiling, you’re a genius.”

  Everyone looked at him.

  “We’re starting in the wrong place,” my cousin said. “I realized it when I saw her coming out of the bathroom, in all the light. The pictures should begin in there, i
n the tub, and then we would be wet when we got into the bed.”

  “That’s a great idea,” Baoyu said. “Let’s try some different combinations too.” Lulu sighed and sat down on the bed.

  My cousin turned to Meiling. “You’ve helped a great deal.”

  I didn’t know about any mandatory study session, but I felt it was time to leave. “We have to go,” I said.

  X nodded. “Here, wait a second.” He looked around Lulu’s bedroom: on the imitation mahogany dresser, which matched the bed and night tables, was a stack of invitation cards. He handed one to Meiling. “You two should come to my performance next week. Then afterward we can all go eat together. I’m going to be hungry,” he said, grinning at the others.

  “It’s at his house—in the East Village,” Fang said. “I can pick you up, if you give me your address.”

  We gave Fang directions to my dormitory. When we left, the three of them were in the bathroom together with Fang, who was taking test shots and checking the light.

  “See you next week,” my cousin said. He was already untying his robe.

  “They’re crazy,” Meiling said, once we were in the elevator.

  “They’re artists,” I said. “That’s what artists are like.”

  Meiling glanced at the card and smiled. “Are you sure?”

  “Just because something doesn’t hang on the wall, doesn’t mean it isn’t art.”

  Meiling shrugged. She handed me the invitation; underneath my cousin’s name, in large letters, was the following:

  “Something That is NOT Art”

  LANE 7, HOUSE 19, APARTMENT 2

  THE EAST VILLAGE, BEIJING

  November 7, 1993

  11 o’clock

  It was the first of many surprises my cousin had in store for me.

  29.

  A WEEK AFTER HARRY LIN FAILED TO SHOW UP FOR THE DINNER PARTY, I received a letter from him. Dr. Travers brought it home from the university, in a plain envelope without a return address or a stamp. During a dinner of swordfish and corn-on-the-cob, I kept the letter next to my plate. The uncle watched me suspiciously, and I could tell that Cece was interested in the envelope’s contents, but I didn’t want to risk opening it in front of them. I couldn’t imagine why the professor would write to me: was it possible that he’d decided to revoke my fellowship so soon?

  After dinner I took the letter up to my bedroom. I sat at the desk for several minutes before opening it. What was I afraid of? In Beijing the idea of the Traverses had been abstract, and I’d barely given a thought to their opinion of me. Now that I was in Los Angeles, however, with real people entertaining the idea of me as a working artist (an idea I once had entertained seriously myself), I didn’t want to disappoint them. I thought that if Harry Lin would just leave me alone, I might be able to produce something that would satisfy my hosts, as well as the trustees of the Dubin Fellowship.

  My dear Zhao,

  You must be wondering why I didn’t show up the other night. I owe you an explanation. (I owe one to your hosts as well, but with them I don’t plan to be quite so forthcoming). I’ve given some thought to your original suggestion, and I believe it’s a good one. I am going to leave you in peace to do your work.

  Part of the difficulty with these fellowships is the isolation of the fellow within the university: he sees the university culture, and little else. Let me assure you, a university is not America! And so I propose that we quarantine you. You’ll work on your project, teach at your school, and live like an ordinary Angelino (if a privileged one). Then let’s see what you come up with. It’s an experiment, but an exciting one I think.

  Perhaps this should be our last contact before the show in November? I am reluctant to deprive myself of your company for so long—but we all make great sacrifices for art. Who knows that better than you do? Until then,

  Your friend,

  Harry Lin (Lin Rui)

  Of course I ought to have been pleased once I read the letter. Everything was fine, just as my cousin had promised. And yet I couldn’t help being stung by the line about “great sacrifices.” There was a time in my life when I might have made sacrifices for art, and chose not to. Afterward I spent a lot of time wondering whether I had behaved sensibly, knowing that I didn’t have enough talent, or whether I’d simply been too frightened of failure to try. Of course, a great deal of what happens in a person’s life depends on chance, and at that time, when I was a student involved with the Beijing East Village, several things happened to set me on another course.

  I was rereading the professor’s letter when I heard the double tone of the telephone, and Cece’s voice over the intercom inviting me to pick up line one. “Fanlong” was on the phone for me. I was surprised to receive a phone call at the Traverses’—not least from a practicing Buddhist monk who’d been active in the Southern Song school of academic painting around the year A.D. 1100.

  I picked up the phone.

  “Hello and Welcome to Beautiful Beverly Hills, California!” said my cousin, who had obviously been practicing a new English phrase. “How’s it going over there?”

  “Fine,” I said. I found I was not as happy to hear a familiar voice as I’d expected.

  “What’s the family like? How’s the weather?”

  “Both very nice,” I said. “The Traverses are good friends of Professor Lin’s, did you know that? He almost came to dinner the other night.”

  “Almost?” My cousin’s blithe tone annoyed me. I thought it would serve him right if Professor Lin had shown up, against his instructions.

  “Luckily he had some university business.”

  “See?” X said. “I told you it would work out. I said you’d want to be left alone to conceive your new project.” He paused. “Have you conceived anything yet?”

  “I’m glad you’re amused,” I said. “Did you know he wrote me a letter? He said I’d made ‘great sacrifices’ for art.”

  “Who hasn’t?” X sighed. “Did I tell you that my new performance is going to have to be scrapped? And the rent just went up at the Factory again. I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be able to stay here. All kinds of artists are starting to move in.”

  Ever since my cousin had become well-known, he’d begun condemning artists loudly—calling them boring, and professing that he’d rather hang out with anyone else. This behavior was confusing, especially if you remembered how assiduously he’d courted the famous ones, before he became an artist himself.

  “I envy you, I really do,” my cousin said. “Is there a swimming pool?”

  “I don’t have time for swimming,” I told him. “I have to come up with an entire show by the spring.”

  “Plenty of time,” X said. “Just do your teaching and sit in the sun. Something will come to you.”

  After we hung up, I noticed I’d been doodling on the yellow pad in front of me. A lobster had appeared, complete with a pair of long antennae. I thought of my cousin’s nickname for me, the Lobster Hermit, and of the famous “mountain men” in our history. Each time a dynasty was overturned, some loyalists fled to the hills, living in remote monasteries, or even caves, taking comfort in the clouds and rocks, and expressing their alienation in poignant painted scrolls. These artists suffered a double loss: not only were they banished, but the court to which they’d devoted themselves was gone. After the defeat of the Southern Song, for example, Hangzhou had never again been an imperial capital.

  And yet that capital had hardly been free of corruption. Some of the Song mountain men had been wealthy dilettantes, lounging on silk pillows, consuming rare delicacies, refining their calligraphy in order to write love poems to young women and boys. It is interesting to note that in Zhao Cangyun’s single extant scroll, Liu Chen and Ruan Zhao in the Tiantai Mountains, both the village of the two Han gentlemen and the paradise into which they stumble are located close to Hangzhou. Perhaps the ambivalence of those gentlemen, hesitating between two worlds, reflects the artist’s feelings as well—almost as if h
is home had to be destroyed before he could begin to paint it.

  30.

  PHIL HAD ORGANIZED HIS SCHEDULE IN LOS ANGELES IN ORDER TO APPEAR as busy as possible. In the morning, around ten, he swam laps, a habit he’d instituted after learning that Yuan Zhao practiced tai chi in the early mornings. (Phil was not awake early enough to observe this first-hand, but he had seen other people doing tai chi on television: it did not look very hard.) When he was done with his swim, he would take a shower and go into the kitchen. The house keeper would offer halfheartedly to make his breakfast; Phil declined without hesitation. Everything that took up time was a good thing. If he got up at ten, swam from ten-fifteen until eleven, and had coffee and a bagel at eleven-thirty, he was capable of stretching the newspaper until one.

  Since he’d arrived in L.A., Phil had begun reading the real estate section; he could not stay at his brother’s forever, and a rental apartment (preferably one with a month-to-month lease) was the obvious solution. The rental apartment listings were not half as interesting as the properties for sale, however, and Phil found himself lingering over the most seductive descriptions in that category. Sometimes something sounded so good—grt. lite, trip-mint, 3 expos—that he couldn’t resist noting down the address on a Post-it, and sticking it in his pocket. Not that he was planning on buying a house in Los Angeles, of course. It was just interesting to know what was out there. Sizzling opportunity! Have it all! Perfect houses existed (his brother’s for example), and there was always the possibility that in this case—won’t last, hurry!—the broker was telling the truth.

  By one o’clock his time, things had slowed down at Aubrey’s office, and on most days she called him then. (Even when they were both in the same time zone, Phil often felt as if Aubrey were three hours ahead of him.) If he hadn’t been hoping that his writing partners would call, he might not have answered his phone.